148: “Obi Wan, the circle is now complete”

c.1983? | age 14/15? The circle is complete and some of the lines are even straight! I was really getting the hang of drawing in this one. I bet I was at least 15 years old. My God—I even used a ruler for the panel borders! But not for the wobbly pill-shaped windows… And look at that ‘super-panel’? Ben ignites his saber in a panel which actually sits behind all of the others. That’s pretty fancy shtuff lads!

Art Notes

Background Action

As a foretaste of the Special Edition and the Prequels, there’s some distracting shooting and such going on behind the main focus of the scene. What’s next? A scrolling text messages banner along the bottom?

Angry, Scornful Ben

Sure he has freed Solo‘s ship from the tractor beam he races towards it.

(The ship, that is)
(I.e; the ship is the thing that he’s running to)
(Not, the tractor beam)
(What would be the point?)

“You!” Not quite the serene, monklike Ben we’re used to. More like “Agh, not you again?” (steps over to wall and starts banging his forehead off it) You – bloody – effing – annoying – BASTARD!” But actually, this is what he does in the Marvel version.

Keep yourself under control, Ben—no need to lose the head! Speaking of which, last time they met, Ben chopped off Darth’s arm, legs; and just for added cruelty gave him a telling off while watching him burning to death beside a lava flow. Oh, and then!—he just walked off and left him there to die in agony. Didn’t tell Luke about that—did you, old boy?

Lovely cuddly old Ben. Hmm.

The other thing is that Ben is actually surprised to bump into Darth. Couldn’t he sense him, just as Darth sensed Ben?

Anyhoo…

Can anyone tell me which production shot—or official graphic—I copied Vader’s head from in panel 3? It might have been a photo from the novel – not sure. Hang on, I’ll go and check… Nope.

The FORP! typography reminds me of Flash Gordon—I think. I sort of liked that ’80s film. I dunno about you, but anything that tried to ape or even compete with Star Wars was the enemy for me. I hated Battlestar Galactica (but watched it religiously all the same). Any movie, TV series or comic that used the word blaster was an object of loathing. Even an issue of 2000AD comic’s Dan Dare showed a character dressed like farm-boy Luke—and that really annoyed me too. How dare they!

Maybe at 10 years old, I should have been working in George Lucas’ legal and copyright department. A sort of in-house intellectual property guardian fascist.